March 2, 2012

COULD YOUR PINTEREST ADDICTION ACTUALLY BE ILLEGAL?

Pinterest is a quickly snowballing virtual image pin board that lets users pull together a wealth of ideas to do things like decorate their home, plan a wedding, find a fashion sense, aggregate recipes and create a book reading wish list, to name a few. With each “pin” is an image. It’s these images that have some squalling about copyright infringement, which if you read Pinterest’s terms of use, is a burden placed on each individual Pinner.

(Image: Pinterest)

Business Insider reports that a lawyer and photographer named Kristin Kowalski was so stunned by the potential for copyright violation on the site, that she decided to delete her Pinterest account. She is one of many joining the ranks concerned about copyright law on the social pinboard site. Business Insider has more on Kowalski’s findings:

She browsed Pinterest’s Terms of Use section. In it she found Pinterest’s members are solely responsible for what they pin and repin. They must have explicit permission from the owner to post everything.

“I immediately thought of the ridiculously gorgeous images I had recently pinned from an outside website, and, while I gave the other photographer credit, I most certainly could not think of any way that I either owned those photos or had a license, consent or release from the photographer who owned them,” Kirsten writes.

Pinterest encourages repinning community photos though, so Kirsten found it hard to believe the act was unlawful. She continued to dig.

Kirsten turned to federal copyright laws and found a section on fair use. Copyrighted work can only be used without permission when someone is criticizing it, commenting on it, reporting on it, teaching about it, or conducting research. Repinning doesn’t fall under any of those categories.

Pinterest’s terms of use, to which anyone who pins on the boards agrees to, states that as a “member” you are responsible for all the content you make available through the site in that you are either the sole owner of the content or that you have obtained consent or release for the content. In addition, Business Insider points out that in the event you are sued for copyright infringement on Pinterest, you may also have to pay the company’s legal fees should they become involved.

Excerpt from Pinterest's terms of use.

Pinterest describes itself as a place where users can “organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.” Pinterest members can not only create their own pin boards but also can follow and browse other users’ pin boards to glean more ideas. Watch this brief Pinterest tutorial to learn more about how it works:

Websites such as Flickr, a popular site for those seeking to beef up pin boards, are beginning to introduce “do not pin” code that would help protect its own users from copyright infringement, Venture Beat reported. Venture Beat also notes that similar anti-pin code was developed, and is now available on Pinterest, for others who wish to protect content on their site.

Business Insider says that Kirsten compares Pinterest to Napster in its viability for copyright infringement and the stance the company maintains in its terms of use. Here’s what she wrote:

So, the next question is “how real is this risk and do I really need to worry about getting sued for something everyone is doing?” Well, my only response to that is to look at what happened with people who used Napster. Many users were, in fact, sued by music companies and artists for unlawful downloading of songs. Users like you and me and a 12-year old girl (not kidding). [...] I’m a lawyer and I see people suing for really dumb stuff every day. And, frankly, this isn’t “dumb stuff.” We are talking about intellectual property rights. Those of you who make your living as photographers know the importance here.

On the flip side, TechDirt is saying the copyright “freakout” and “hysteria” over Pinterest is pointless. Why? It believes that the traffic Pinterest brings to the source website of the image — when you create a pin the website from which it came is associated with it — will benefit it enough to trump copyright concerns. TechDirt sources a recent Mashable article about the amount of traffic Pinterest is driving to women’s magazines as an example:

Beginning this summer, Pinterest became the top social referrer for marthastewartweddings.com and marthastewart.com, sending more traffic to both properties than Facebook and Twitter combined. Pinterest is on track to become the second highest traffic driver (after Google) to Cooking Light‘s website, up 6,000% from just six months ago. The social bookmarking site already drives three times the amount of traffic to Cooking Light compared to Facebook.

Elsewhere, Pinterest is the fourth largest source of traffic for Country Living, up 150% from August to the end of January, and accounts for 3% of all referrals. It was the ninth largest traffic source for both Elle Decor and House Beautiful last month, both of which have seen triple-digit percentage increases in referrals over the last six months, and was among the top 10 referral sites for Self magazine.

The Atlantic Wire thinks that Pinterest is “backing itself into a wall” with the terms of use potentially turning off Pinners and preventing pinning capability by issuing code. What do you think?

Outspoken Harvard University professor Alan Dershowitz asserted that Media Matters has “crossed the line into anti-Semitism” by tolerating an employee – M.J. Rosenberg — who consistently downplays the Iranian nuclear threat and repeatedly engages the term “Israel firster” — an epithet that implies a person’s loyalties are to Israel, rather than America first.

The staunch Zionist and liberal Democrat first started speaking out against the liberal media watchdog group last month.

“When you accuse Jews of dual loyalty, you invoke a canard that goes back hundreds of years and falls into the category of anti-Semitism,” Dershowitz said in an interview on Fox News. “To the extent that Media Matters hired him to do that and is tolerating him, they have crossed the line into anti-Semitism.”

Dershowitz called on Media Matters to fire Rosenberg, but also called on the White House to disassociate itself from Media Matters — warning that their cozy relationship would cause problems in the 2012 reelection campaign.

“The president should do to Media Matters what he did to Jeremiah Wright – totally disassociate, rebuke and say ‘I stand with Israel,’” he said.

Fox provides background on the Media Matters staffer:

Rosenberg, a senior foreign policy fellow, often writes about the heated rhetoric in Washington regarding the possibility of a conflict with Iran over its nuclear program. He is a sharp critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has been warning the U.S. against joining his administration in any military campaign against Iran.

Rosenberg is hardly alone in those opinions, but his critics complain he also resorts to name-calling in the course of making his arguments.

In a column last month, Rosenberg argued that the “Israel firster” term is “accurate,” if not polite, in covering the issue of a possible war with Iran.

“There is no need here to describe who the Israel Firsters are. They are those people (of whatever ethnic background) who invariably support Israel’s policies over those of the United States,” he wrote.

The passionate Dershowitz maintained, however, that Israel‘s and America’s interests are aligned, and said Rosenberg was essentially accusing people like Dershowitz of “treason.”

“It’s the oldest of charges … accusing Jews of dual loyalty, and it can’t be tolerated, whether it comes from the left or the right,” he said. “The tent is not big enough to include people who have engaged in bigotry against the Jewish people.”

Sandra Fluke Does Not Speak for Me

I’m a proud Georgetown woman upset about another Georgetown woman who may have no pride at all. How else do you explain - Ms. Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law student, now famous for testimony she never gave – jumping up to talk about her sex life (with the Senate Minority Leader and with the liberal media) and ask for the cost of her sex life to be subsidized by other students at a Jesuit School?

Sandra Fluke was declined the privilege (a privilege, not a right) of testifying in front of a Senate Committee on the proposed contraceptive mandate.

Me? I love me some extracurricular involvement. The difference between Sandra and me is that I don’t think it qualifies me to speak in front of Congress. ”The Chair calls to the stand the captains of the intramural ultimate frisbee team!”

Having been told by Congress to more or less shut up and go home, Sandra found a sympathetic ear in Nancy Pelosi. She is not going to find one on the Georgetown Campus. She is wildly out of step.

Senate Democrats needed a show pony for this circus – and they knew they could find a liberal woman on a college campus who would willingly trot around the ring. That’s why Nancy & Pals created a photo op with all the props – the microphones, the podium, an air of pretense, and the all-important liberal media – for Sandra to tell her “story.” And it is just that – a story, told on a stage.

But Nancy Pelosi and the Liberal Media should know that they can no longer rely on college campuses as an endless source of liberal support. My colleagues and I at TheCollegeConservative are creating a new wave on campuses across the country. Every day we make it a little safer to be conservative – out in public – without fear of bad grades as a result of our views. Sandra should know we have no fear in calling out a classmate for thoughtless liberal ideology.

Sandra Fluke doesn’t speak for me. Or for Georgetown.

She doesn’t speak for those of us who worked hard to be able to choose to come to a great institution with a great tradition of faith and scholarship. She certainly can’t speak for the Jesuits who dedicated their lives to God and Education with a long established set of rules. There are only ten of them, and Ms. Fluke would do well to give them a quick read.

If she wants a more liberal sex life, she can go to Syracuse. (Syracuse, I must apologize – but we are in March and basketball matters – sorry you got caught up in this.)

Sandra doesn’t even speak for all skanks! She only speaks for the skanks who don’t want to take responsibility for their choices. That’s a tiny group of people. Hey Sandra! How about next Saturday night, you come hang out with me and my gay boyfriends! Your hair will look fabulous and you’ll get to see great musical theatre! Oh, and odds of you getting pregnant? Zero percent.

Even the oh-so-left HuffPo called Sandra out on her media sluttery: ”Fluke got the stage all to herself and was hailed as a hero by the crowd and Democratic lawmakers on the panel, all of whom rushed to appear on camera with her at the end. “Excuse me. I’d love to get a picture with our star,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said as she pushed her way through the packed room to Fluke.” Star of what? Star of the bedroom sex tape? When did Georgetown Law start admitting Kardashians?

Sandra, we might be on the same campus, but we are not on the same planet.

Sandra told some sob stories about how contraception isn’t covered by the Jesuit institution we attend. (Maybe they don’t cover it because, you know, they’re a Jesuit institution. Religious freedom? Anyone? Bueller?)

A student group called Plan A H*yas for Choice staged a demonstration against the university health plan last year, duct taping their mouths and chaining themselves to the statue of Georgetown’s founder on the university’s front lawn. Then, a funny thing happened – nothing. We left them there. Now Sandra has chained herself to the sinking ship of Pelosi Liberalism. She will always be remembered as a Welfare Condom Queen.

Let’s talk priorities here. It costs over $23,000 for a year at Georgetown Law. Sandra, are you telling us that you can afford that but cannot afford your own contraception? Really? Math was never my strong suit, but something about Sandra’s accounting just doesn’t seem right.

No one forced Sandra to come to Georgetown. And now that she has, Sandra does not have to depend on the university health plan. She could walk down the street to CVS and get some contraception herself. Or, go to an off-campus, non-university doctor and pay for it out of pocket. (Or, you know…maybe not have so much sex that it puts her in financial peril?)

Funny how the same side that cries “Get your rosaries off my ovaries” is the same side saying, “on second thought…please pay for me to have all the sex I want!” The people who espouse “pro-choice” “values” are the same people who say religious institutions have no right to choose.

Imagine if someone else had asked the government to cover a different activity. Let’s say I want to go rock climbing. It’s my body and my choice and I want to climb all the cliffs I can! Imagine if I went to the government and asked it to pay for helmets and ropes and band-aids I’ll need to safely climb rocks every day of my life. What would everyone say?

“It’s your choice to do that- no one’s forcing you to scale cliffs. So, either quit it or pay for it yourself!”

This is the reaction we should have had to Sandra Fluke.

Sandra, I hope you take to heart our school’s motto of “Cura Personalis” – care of the whole person. You are so much more than your reproductive organs. Please, have some self-respect and take responsibility for your choices instead of having to beg the government for help. The government should not be able to force a religious institution – like the one we attend – to pay for the things they don’t believe in. That is pretty clear in the first amendment. But since you missed the ten commandments I can’t expect you to read the Bill of Rights either.

I believe in Georgetown. I love this school. And I know that we are so, so much better than what Sandra Fluke would make us out to be.